"Jonathan Wentz's set is glorious, a great sprawling thing that seems to swallow the audience just as Rothko wanted his paintings to swallow the viewer. Wentz built it from photos of the former high school gymnasium where Rothko had his studio at the time.

But the real challenge was re-creating six of Rothko's monumental-sized paintings. Wentz had previously seen some of the originals at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, so he knew them well. But he had only a week to duplicate what had taken Rothko months to do. And he had to do it with latex rather than oil paint.

The results are impressive. Though slightly smaller than the originals, they still tower over the actors and the big blocks of color seem to pulsate with the same intensity. To better display them, he made the rest of the set neutral in tone. "I didn't want anything on the set to fight with what the colors and the painting are saying because that's so much of what the play is about," Wentz says."

An excerpt from Todd Wallinger's review in the Colorado Springs Independent